I
would like to thank everyone who has given me positive responses about this
blog. I’m able to track how many people
read it and honestly I’m amazed at the large number of folks surfing over to
this site. Thank you and I will try to
keep it going as the busy track season begins!
I’m
also going to change the format just a bit and put my thoughts into different
sections (Track, Movies, Everything Else, Website of the Week, Interesting
Articles). Feel free to skip to whatever
is interesting, you won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t read the whole thing.
Track
As
you can probably imagine it’s been another quiet week since we didn’t have
official practice. I did see several
Shockers at the Heskett Center Thursday who were doing their workouts on their
own. Like I have mentioned previously,
this is a stressful time of the year for coaches because it’s been so long
since we’ve had practice and once we get going we have only about 6 weeks until
our MVC Indoor Championships. We still
have another week until we have official practice but I assume we’ll see most
of our team back this week doing their workouts. Hopefully everyone is getting healthy and
mentally ready for the next 5-6 months of competition!
We
are less than two weeks away from our season opener and I think I speak for
almost everyone when I say I can’t wait to get going!!!
I’m
on the board of directors for the Shocker Track Club (STC), a local non-profit
organization that helps us get officials
for our meets as well as operating a
Youth, Masters, and Elite team (you can check out Shockertrackclub.com for more
information), and they hosted a Youth/Open/Master’s meet on Saturday at the
Heskett Center. It was quite an affair
with athletes from several states, including as far away as New Mexico and Minnesota. The highlight of the meet was watching 76
year old Bob Lida, who lives in Wichita, break his age group World Record in
the 60m dash with a time of 8.44! He
also barely missed the 200m record by a tenth of a second. There were athletes over the age of 80 all
the way down to 6 years old at this meet and it makes me realize how special
our sport can be. These athletes are ALL out there for the love of the sport
and competition. After being at our
national convention last week and talking about all the problems our sport has,
it’s nice to be reminded of why I got started in the first place.
Movies
After
seeing several movies last week I was not able to get to any this week for
various reasons. There are plenty of
choices out there so hopefully I will see one or two in the next few days.
Everything Else
I
was lucky enough to have a great New Year’s celebration with a large group of
people from the Wichita State athletic department. Usually us track coaches socialize with our
own and aren’t able to get out and about with other coaches and department
folks but New Year’s was a great time full of fun, food and spirits! I played a game called Cards Against Humanity
which was completely inappropriate. I
would recommend it highly, haha.
As
I am writing this I have conflicting emotions because, simultaneously, I was
watching my hometown Bengals implode in the NFL playoffs while watching my
current hometown Shockers blowout conference rival Northern Iowa. I decided to do a Billy Beane from Moneyball
and work out the entire 2nd half on the treadmill while watching the
games. I liken it to coaching both men
and women at the MVC Championships when we win one title and lose the
other. It’s the most amazing combination
of mixed emotions I’ve ever felt. How to
you act happy and disappointed at the same time? I’ve never been able to figure it out. Luckily, WSU Track & Field is the only
team I’m emotionally involved with so I’m already over the Bengals loss and
thank them for the entertainment this year.
However,
I can relate to what those coaches and athletes must feel. I have a lot of respect for people like
Bengals coach Marvin Lewis and quarterback Andy Dalton, they will be killed by
the media for a long time and what the media doesn’t always realize it how hard
it is to win a game against a team full of professionals that are trying to
accomplish the same feat. I really can’t
stand the negativity the media and fans spew after games like that and I pretty
much totally ignore reading articles or watching tv that is associated with
that kind of attitude after a tough loss.
I hope Lewis, Dalton, and the rest of the Bengals do the same. It’s only a game folks, it’s meant to be
enjoyed.
Website of the Week
If
you know me then you know I’ve always been a huge fan of Seinfeld (Happy
Festivus!). So when Jerry and the gang
ended their run of brilliance in 1998, so did a large part of my television
viewing enjoyment. Luckily a couple
years ago Seinfeld started this great online show where he rides around in a
weird car and then drinks coffee with another stand up comedian. This week he chose Louie CK, who is also one
of my favorites. If you haven’t been on
the site before you can view all of the previous episodes, I recommend watching
all of them!
Interesting
Articles
Hope you enjoy! See you all next week!
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